Mlafu - CVP Report Jan 25-2010

2009 CVP
Companion Village Project
Visit Report
4th Visit Year One
January 25, 2010


Village Mlafu
Pastor Daison Mpesa
Companion Our Saviour’s, Stillwater
Attendees 12, 10 male, 2 female
Weather for the past month Rainy
Reporters Gabriel, Alfred, Ibriham, Roger

Purpose of the visit
• Bean planting and fertilizer application demonstrations
• Bean seeds, fertilizers and Pesticides delivery
Topics
1. Greetings
Roger derived greetings from the Saint Paul Area Synod and the US Advisory Committee
2. Corn plot and rain records
Corn Seed variety planted H 628
Planting date November 23, 2009
Replanting date December 17, 2009
First weeding January 25, 2010
Pests/Diseases Nil
They rain records are well recorded and placed in the box file. They have received 258mm or about 10 inches of rain since early November.
3. Review of Handouts
o 4th visit handout was reviewed
4. Demonstrations
I. Beans
It was demonstrated how to measure inter row spacing (30cm) and intra row spacing (10cm). String was used to make trench and in the trench bean seeds were placed 10cm apart. Fertilizer was placed 5cm from the seeds. Both seeds and fertilizer were covered.
II. Corn
It was demonstrated how to make second application of fertilizer in the corn. Two holes were made 5cm from the plant and fertilizer was put then covered. We told them to do this when the plants are knee high.
III. Pesticides
It was demonstrated how mix the pesticide “Thionex” which is used to control crop damaging insects.
5. Fertilizers, bean seed and pesticides delivery
The congregation was given 2 bags of NPK for bean and 2 bags of CAN for corn. The bean seed variety delivered is “Uyole 98” (27 kg). We also gave them 1 bottle of Thionex pesticide.

Comments/questions from audience
 They asked how far from the corn plant the fertilizer should be placed when doing second application?
We told them that fertilizer should be placed 5cm from the plant. Make two holes in both sides of the plant, put the fertilizer then cover it with soil (The information is also found in the 4th Visit handout which we gave them)
 They have been using various varieties of been seeds (which they do not remember their names) and almost each of them has different planting time, from mid of February to March. What is the suitable time to plant the bean variety (Uyole 98) which we give them?
We asked them, why do they have different planting time, they said they have prolonged rainfall hence planting time differ depending on what time the beans mature. We told them the bean variety we gave them is suitable to their weather; however they should plant in February to avoid the prolonged rainfall.
 They asked what time they should weed the bean plot.
We told them to do monthly weeding; however weeding should not be done at the time of germination because it might destroy primary leaves and also should not be done at the time of flowering because flowers will be knocked down by hoes and human movements. Moreover, we believe that the closely planting we teach them will reduce the weeding task.
 They raised a concern that the closely planting in beans will lead into difficult weeding because their wide hoes will not be able to move freely.
We told them one advantage of closely planting is that the crop plants form a canopy which suppress the weeds. If they follow the spacing as we instruct them, they will have less weed problem. Moreover if they did observe the monthly weeding techniques, they will also have less weeding at this time.

Conclusions/Recommendations
We conducted the demonstration in their bean plot. We told them they should observe monthly weeding to reduce the weeding task later on. We asked them few questions as the review of what we have been teaching them. Only two said they have already started to adopt the techniques. They said since this is their first year, they are waiting to see the yields to see the benefits our techniques.

NB:
• 1 bag of NPK is 50kg and 1 bag of CAN is 50kg